"Here are four big reasons why you shouldn’t believe Premier Dalton McGuinty
when he says he will not impose a carbon tax if he wins the Oct. 6 Ontario
election.And why there’s also no reason to believe his claim the cap-and-trade market
he intends to create — basically a carbon tax by another name — is years away
from reality, if it ever happens.(1) Last week, Liberal MPP David Levac said twice during an interview with
our sister paper, the Brantford Expositor, the McGuinty Liberals are considering
a carbon tax. While he later
claimed to have confused a carbon tax with cap-and-trade, for which McGuinty has
already passed enabling legislation and issued regulations, it’s very
hard to believe that.Levac is the parliamentary assistant to the energy minister, the ministry,
along with environment, most directly involved in putting a price tag on
industrial carbon dioxide emissions, which is what both a carbon tax and
cap-and-trade do.This is because both initiatives will increase the price of energy, including
gasoline, home heating fuels and electricity.If Levac, as parliamentary assistant to the energy minister, really did
confuse a carbon tax with cap-and-trade, he’s incompetent.Both Tory Leader Tim Hudak and New Democrat MPP Peter Kormos, who have known
Levac for years, say there’s no way that’s the case.(2) What is McGuinty’s promise he’s not considering a carbon tax worth?
McGuinty said repeatedly in the 2003 election campaign that brought him to power
he wouldn’t raise taxes and signed a pledge not to do so.And yet, after winning office, he brought in one of the largest tax hikes in
Ontario history.That was before the HST in 2010, after McGuinty again promised in the 2007
campaign he wouldn’t raise taxes.Look at the fiscal mess Ontario is in and you know McGuinty needs a huge, new
revenue source to pay for his big-spending, union-friendly government.A carbon tax fits the bill because it creates a new revenue stream for
government by charging taxpayers for something they’ve never been charged for
before.(3) There’s also reason for skepticism about McGuinty’s claim he will move
slowly on establishing a cap-and-trade market and won’t do if it hurts the
economy.Asked about cap-and-trade last week, McGuinty said: “We can’t go there right
now because we have no partners, no other people who want to engage in the
trading system right now. At the end of the day, if it’s not something that
serves to benefit our economy, we’re not going to do it.”First, recall that McGuinty claimed the HST would benefit our economy, so
there’s his excuse for introducing cap-and-trade whenever he wants.As for having “no partners”, Environment Minister John Wilkinson has been
telling green groups in this election Ontario is proud to co-chair the Western
Climate Initiative (WCI), a coalition of four provinces - Ontario, B.C., Quebec
and Manitoba — working on a regional cap-and-trade market with six U.S. states —
California, Washington, Arizona, Montana, Oregon and Utah.The WCI website (westernclimateinitiative.org) describes these provinces and
states as “WCI partners.”While he’s now advocating a go slow approach, when Ontario joined WCI three
years ago, McGuinty accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of a “lack of
leadership” on the issue, saying Ontario couldn’t afford to wait any longer.A more plausible explanation for McGuinty’s downplaying of cap-and-trade now
is that it’s far less politically popular today than in 2008, because the public
now understands a carbon tax and cap-and-trade do the same thing — dramatically
raise their cost of living.President Barack Obama’s attempt to introduce cap-and-trade in the U.S. died
in Congress and Harper has said Canada won’t proceed without the U.S.Grits ‘committed’However, Wilkinson told the Globe and Mail in April while Ontario won’t be
ready to implement cap-and-trade on Jan. 1, 2012, as originally planned, “We are
committed to cap-and-trade through the Western Climate Initiative.”(4) Finally, none of McGuinty’s green energy initiatives — the Green Energy
Act, the Samsung deal, feed-in-tariffs, higher electricity prices, imposing wind
turbines on rural communities — make sense unless McGuinty intends to introduce
a carbon tax, cap-and-trade, or both.Given current technology, wind and solar power can only be made competitive
with fossil fuel energy if the price of fossil fuels rises dramatically. That’s
exactly what a carbon tax and cap-and-trade are designed to do".
*
Now, a year after the above story, we can clearly see that McGuinty was desperately in need of a majority, in order to push through his planned carbon-tax cash-cow, similar to B.C.'s Liberal money-grab fraud, based on similar, typical climate GreenFear lies.

...(By the way: see Ontario Liberal John Wilkinson's smarmy cap-and-trade act on You Tube here - it's incredible!! And, can ya believe that GreenFear-infected dufus who is seen "asking" Wilkinson those "questions"??! And, can ya believe that some are now touting that this hump could replace McGuinty as premier!! [Makes perfect sense!!]
That kiss-ass Wilkinson "interview" is the same kind of phony "interview" which the St.Catharines Standard JimmyBoyFanClub gives to Jim Bradley!!)...

After the Oct.2011 Ontario election, McGuinty obtained a slim minority; we watched the Liberals subsequently squirm and connive to try to get a majority - unsuccessfully - in two 2012 by-elections. McGuinty knew he could not contain his incompetent, costly Liberal GreenFear-based energy fiasco bottled up much longer - he needed that crucial majority in order to hide his disastrous GreenFear ponzi scheme from exploding in his face... at least for another term.

McGuinty knew he needed lots of cash to pay for his eight years-worth of incompetent green energy experiments, and that is why his cap-and-trade scheme...

(yes, yes; it's a carbon tax, they're the same thing... don't be fooled by the GreenFear-industry's claims that this is somehow different! McGuinty's "health premium" was a tax! McGuinty's "eco-fee" was a tax!)

...was put out and touted on Jim Bradley's Ministry Of Environment website: see here and here.

The set up was fermenting since 2009, all McGuinty needed was another majority: the gas-plant scandal then would have all been swept under the rug (or, it might have never been revealed at all!), and the carbon-tax would have already been gouging Ontarians, WCI or no WCI - it wouldn't have mattered, and this never did matter: the WCI itself was a GreenFear-creation.
All that mattered was that McGuinty needed cash, and needed a phony enviro-beard to justify it, all based on the utter lie that McGuinty and Jim Bradley would be Saving The Planet From Doom.

This was Dalton McGuinty's and Jim Bradley's long green-Liberal-carbon-tax con - thwarted by one seat.
(see MPP Michael Harris' take on the Liberal's cap and trade carbon tax lies, from May 1, 2012)
After all, we must not forget the template and the established record set by McGuinty's and Jim Bradley's lying Liberals: Ontario got their Health Tax after McGuinty's Liberal lies; Ontario got their HST after McGuinty's Liberal lies, and no doubt Ontario would have already got their Carbon-Tax, again based on McGuinty's Liberal lies.

Now, take a look at how the smarmy, sanctimonious Jim Bradley in this May 1, 2012 You Tube video, blatantly lies and laughs off during Question Period in Ontario's Legislature, that his Liberals have any carbon tax schemes - yet, they're right there, on his own tax-payer-funded website!

And anyways, Enviro-Jimmy's tied up for a month or two, what with that mountain of paper-shredding he needs to take care of. Wendy's Jim Bradley Brown Nosers understand, and will loyally abide: can't bother Good Ole Liberal Jimmy with pesky questions!
*
By Jun.6, 2013, Ontario's Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian was reporting that senior McGuinty staff members had been deleting emails regarding the gas plants. Thankfully, we in Niagara can rest assured that the local newspapers will not be interviewing Liberals Jim Bradley or Kim Craitor about any of this, either.
*
By April 2015, the desperate Liberals (now a lying majority again) have now moved to create a carbon tax in Ontario, as seen in this Apr.12, 2015 Toronto Star story.
Despite his previous lies, Jim Bradley's GreenFear wet dream tax fantasy will be forced upon Ontarians - yet neither Jim Bradley nor Kathleen Wynne have provided any evidence of 'man made global warming', nor have they provided evidence that their tax grab will do anything to stop 'global warming / climate change'.
Ontario's Liberals are pushing a fraudulent tax based not on fact, but on GreenFear rhetoric.
*